soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Must-Have Gadgets For Carry-On Travel

By

Never is my carry-on shoulder bag completely packed until the morning of departure when all the gadgets and gizmos required to outfit my mobile office on the go is thrown together with cords flying and battery packs secured.

Because I always want the latest in tech gadgetry, although I’m still using Apple iPad 2 and iPhone 4S with Kindle Fire, the electronic accessories and awesome bags are what I look for to make me happier on the road.

If you could manage one back-pack of electronics and cameras with accessories, here are my picks for your carry-on luggage.

Bear with me as I change it up and we go shopping. What’s your favorite airport to snatch up a gadget? Nothing beats Chicago O’Hare and Denver makes me happy, too.

Gadgets for Business Travel

Wheeled Bag: $$$

Tumi gets my vote for luggage of choice for travelers. It’s durable, the handles withstand heavy ingredients, and the fabric is not easily ripped. Tumi has been creating more carry-on luggage for women in attractive colors, but the standard black for the men is also appealing. Mind you, the prices are not cheap, but you’re not going to replace these bags for 20 years! Quality begets cost savings, for sure!

Nikon J-1 Digital Camera: $$$

I purchased this a year ago and cannot say enough great things about this camera and video recorder. The clarity of images are better than I have ever had with other digital cameras, and it’s simple to use…truly a point and click experience. (Since it comes in red, pink, white, and black, I’m sure you can see why it has vast appeal, too! Here’s a white one with extra telephone lens.

iPad Case (all generations) With Bluetooth Keyboard: $

I bought this at O’Hare; what a perfect mistake! Had I waited to buy it via Amazon, I would not have spent way too much money. I adore this purchase; it has added new life to my iPad2 making it more convenient than ever to carry everywhere just like a light-weight textbook. The keyboard built in is such a dream; no more carrying cases for the Apple wireless keyboard. Very reasonable, too.

iPhone Camera Kit: $

If you don’t want the pricier digital camera (sometimes you need it), then do purchase a camera kit with magnetic lenses, a tripod and case to outfit the iPhone with some gear to keep your trigger finger happy taking photos.
I’ve been told my videos are shaky, so I have this ordered — a complete kit for iPhone 4/4S.

Pivot Power Mini: $

I hate looking around hotel rooms for the free outlet to plug in various devices. With this compact size adapter, you get two sockets and two USB ports; everyone is happy!

Ear Buds by Dr. Dre

This brand is so attractive; have you seen Dr. Dre everywhere? Ear buds are very personal, and you don’t have to invest in an expensive set to be happy. As a woman, I don’t want my curls smushed with a headset over my head and huge ear-muff circles. These are really sound absorbing; nothing comes in from the outside at all. I prefer the light-weight plug ins, and just got some of these at O’Hare (!).

External Battery Pack for All Smart Devices (all phones, devices)

You never should be without external battery packs with tips/adapters for all the devices and mobile computing systems you bring on the road. It will be years before adapters are uniform, so invest in a decent external battery back up so you’ve got power when stranded somewhere without electricity.

I own all of the above except for one item…the Tumi bag is on the wish list. Share your must-haves for business travel; everyone has something different.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Meet A New Layer In The Sales Channel: The Genius

By

Credit: Jayme Soulati; Santa Monica Apple Store

Credit: Jayme Soulati; Santa Monica Apple Store

BMW went on a date with Apple and the former liked the latter’s “genius model” so well that it swiped the concept flat out.  That’s OK; it’s allowed.

In 2014, BMW dealerships across the U.S. will roll out “BMW Genius Everywhere,” the program that puts IT-savvy youngsters complete with iPad in hand on dealership sales floors to interact with customers.

Just like Apple’s genius program where (mostly) 20-something men (have you ever seen a female wearing Apple genius shirt in store?) patrol Apple retail stores to help customers, BMW is doing the very same…taking a page from a successful Apple marketing and sales playbook.

As more vehicles go high tech with bells and whistles only IT-savvy dudes can figure out, BMW is helping its sales team by intercepting the customer  with a barrage of cool information about vehicle tech features inside the car.

This new talent will stop short of selling vehicles, and they will be on salary and not commission. The program is set to coincide with the 2014 rollout of BMW’s i3 electric car. Cadillac and Lexus already have similar programs in the U.S.

Thinking About Customers

I love this marketing program.

  • It’s a steel bridge from the prospect to sales  with the girder being a genius aka college upstart hungry to work with nothing but geek to share.
  • It finally puts marketing and sales on the same team; marketing gets to help disseminate information to prospects about vehicle features and pave the way for the sale.
  • Marketing gets to LISTEN directly to the customer with face-to-face interaction the likes of which only happens in a focus group session behind mirrored glass.
  • Young students can work nights and weekends without interfering with studies during the day.
  • Sales people are passed a hotter lead from the genius who can share more features and functionality about a vehicle than the sales person would know (e.g. how the USB port works and whether there’s a way to make the car a hot spot when driving).
  • As for customers, interacting first with a genius means no pressure to buy.  Someone can listen to the good stuff, walk away and phone back and ask for a sales person.
  • The program is already doing well in the U.K. and will roll out across Europe.

Your Brand
Let’s think a moment about how this impacts your brand, and it doesn’t have to be a luxury brand to think about how to engage customers and prospects on a different level.

Your company should already be engaging customers via social media channels; however, is there also room for a 1:1 program where your team is on the frontline with prospects?

Let’s talk about what that program looks like…creativity is the name of the game to cut through the chatter.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Book Review of APE By Guy Kawasaki

By

Guy Kawasaki, American venture capitalist and one of the original Apple Computer employees responsible for marketing of the Macintosh in 1984. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Content marketing for business development purposes is critical. Businesses need to draft authentic and fresh content and make it available via calls to action on a website which turns into a landing page and then a thank you page and everyone’s happy.

My first e-book was written in December; a collection of blog articles I’ve written about blogging — one of my favorite topics.

And, then this monkey book came to my attention. I am screaming from the rooftops:

RUN AND BUY NOW!

If you don’t already know about APE, uhmm, well perhaps you’re under a rock? No offense…this book is everywhere on all the social media channels and being reviewed by everyone. I would be remiss not to join in and share the excitement for this book. If you have any designs whatsoever, even if it’s a germ of an idea, to become an author, then please, please go get this book.

I downloaded this book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch and read its 500+ pages over a few nights all the while highlighting and bookmarking pages for future reference on my Kindle  Fire.

I knew, prior to finishing the book, I had to go back to the drawing board with my e-book which I’ll share about in another post. This book is that good; it’s making me take the time to redo and do it right to become a self-published author.

Why You Should Read APE

This book is written in a friendly and easy-to-understand style and tone. It has a ton of detail about all aspects of publishing books. Although I am only interested in self-publishing, the book is a great resource for traditional publishing, too.

Each chapter addresses the basics about writing, formatting, designing selling, and working with publishers. What it does extremely well is tell the truth about the quagmire that is self-publishing.

This industry is nascent, and there are no real standards yet. People who self-publish should really consider using Adobe InDesign publishing software (used by professionals and $$), and they also need to learn and understand the various formats for the various booksellers. I never knew a thing about MOBI, EPUB or PDF file formats. I also never knew there are four major players with which you can work to sell your e-books (via Google Play, iBookstore, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Kobo).

How about pricing a book? Don’t forget how much it costs to design a cover, proof and edit a book, too!

APE-Book-CoverFor serious authors, this is probably a piece of cake; for first-timers like me, it’s a nightmare…time consuming and fraught with tech issues one can’t control. Did you know that each file format handles tables of contents differently? Don’t even think about having nice images, tables or bullets in your manuscript without ensuring they look decent in the final form…these don’t import well, either.

 

That’s why this book is worth every penny. Each and every one of the issues above are addressed in this book. Even if you merely want to publish a PDF book for downloading on your website, you still want to read this book. Who knows? That PDF book might become hugely popular, and then what should you do?

The other good news about this book is the website the authors built for the book, Upon going there, with one share on social media, you’re privy to tools and downloads that help you write and self-publish your own book. Guy and Shawn self-published APE, and it’s offered on Kindle Direct Publishing. How cool and clever is that?

You know what else is awesome? is featured in the book with her own chapter! She’s the and of 12Most.com, and she also manages a (by request only), too. It’s really wonderful when the people who have guest starred on this blog show up in nationally acclaimed books.

Run, as I said, and get this book. Its a top read for every would-be author.

 

 

 

Related articles

Creative Thermostats, Called Nest, Apple Style

By

Credit: Nest.com

This post originally appeared Nov. 30, 2011 and is being resurrected in honor of Apple becoming the largest U.S. company ever, surpassing Microsoft, according to this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

In my favorite ‘zine, Fast Company, in its “Next” series, and within that there’s a story about a cool, coming-soon new thermostat inspired by the iPod’s first developer Tony Fadell. Tony used to work at Apple; made 17 versions of the iPod, then departed and is now all creative with a thermostat.

This story is a great next segment in my creativity series–about how you take a product every single house has one or two of and turn it into something innovative, interesting, worthy of notice, and trendy.

Fadell’s Nest–Learning Thermostat costs $250, and it’s differentiator is that it learns your preferences as you dial your temperature up or down. After about 10 or 20 twists of the shiny, artsy dial, the thermostat regulates your home’s temperature on its own. No more adjustments or forgets; automatic temperature control.

>>Attraction #1: I’ve tried to program my thermostat for morning, day and night, but it was too complex and was never reliable. I resort to manual programming about three times daily.

In the article, these interesting tidbits corroborate what I just said:

>>10 million thermostats are sold annually; only 11% of users actively program them.

>>Thermostats are “treated like a light switch, with people manually adjusting them 1,500 times per year,” said Fadell.

Fadell has plans to add his thermostat to other devices networked throughout the home, but he learned at Apple to build slowly, let people learn about the device, get excited, and then introduce new concepts.

Attraction #2: If my thermostat could tell me the weather in the morning at school bus time, that would be incredible. If the potential is there at some point, that’s cool. With the knowledge we have about Apple products and devices speaking to each other wirelessly, it’s not too far fetched for a thermostat to be included in the mix. And, it’s not a device I ever expected to think about; at all.

Fadell designed his product with one function — a dial that turns the temperature up or down. He took this from the iPod which has a scrolling dial to allow music logs to move up and down the screen.

Attraction #3: Not too many dials, controls, instructions, or complexity. Keep it simple for the masses.

Here’s where creativity really comes into play — in the packaging. Fadell’s iPod was packaged neatly and really cool. (I still have the acrylic boxes mine all came in.) He put his thermostat within packaging that includes a custom-manufactured screwdriver and a level indicator at back so people know if it hangs level on the wall. While this isn’t cheap,  Fadell says the “unboxing experience” contributes to ease of installation.

Attraction #4: When I bought my house, I installed my own digital thermostat with help from dad. I read the complicated instructions and told dad what to do with the color-coded wires. It was an ordeal and made me nervous because I’d never done that before. In fact, how many of you have? If I know Nest is plug and play for real, then I a) want one and b) become an automatic grassroots champion. (Ooh, just read that Nest offers a professional concierge service for installation!!)

Lastly, design. Like most things Apple that are techy, modern and cool, the Nest is also one neat device to look at. Silver edge, black inner circle with ocean blue inner circle and bold white, large numerals; not overly large. Fadell says he wanted a “symbol of hipness intended to be shown off like a badge and a jewel on the wall.”

Attraction #5: Take a look at your thermostat; is it a design element or eye sore in your home? When I remodeled my living room, I wished I had a more contemporary thermostat instead of the beige box I have now.

How is all this creative?

Look at all the steps Fadell and his team needed to strategize how to sell something no one replaces that often (albeit 10 million are sold annually). They really thought, creatively, about how to take a mundane product and turn it into something trendy, hip, green, and eco.

Those are a few reasons why you gotta appreciate Apple and all its offshoots who continue to bring us innovation in really creative ways.

Migrating PC to iMac

By

The most challenging tech experience of all has begun; I’m migrating from PC (Windows XP, a life-time user) to Mac. The iMac, named Big Mac, sat in the box two weeks because I was in fear of how best to begin. I’ll keep you informed of my tips and tricks along the way, but I thought it best to ask the experts who have already graduated from this experience.

Today’s special guest is Mark C. Robins, CEO of Lawyer Locate, a Canadian firm that does exactly as its name suggests. Mark is one of the most generous Twitter pals on Earth. Nary a Friday goes by when he isn’t doling out #FF greetings, and I love him for that.

My questions have multiplied since I wrote this; the Big Mac was still safely ensconced in its box. Today is day two of the experience, and my head is swimming. Mark is going to help me and you, too:

What is the first tip you’d offer someone migrating from PC to Mac?

If possible let Apple transfer all your PC files and programs for you; there may be a small cost if you did not Buy “Joint Venture” but well worth it to have the experts do it.

If you have an external hard drive that houses photos, music, files and Outlook email what do you recommend for files migration?

Again same as the previous answer let Apple do it for you. In Canada it is simple to take your Mac and drive to the Apple Store Genius Bar (make an online appointment first) and they will do the rest, sometimes while you wait.

Are there resources you used when you/your company migrated over? Sites, links, apps that make it easier?

Sorry to sound like a broken record but we did a great deal of research into this and found that even our PC IT people recommended letting Apple do it. In our case we have four iMac’s to set up and they took care of all the transfers and set up over a single weekend.

Here is the link to joint venture. Jayme Note: I bought three years of Geek Squad, Ask An Agent, and I want to say I have called several times and am duly impressed. They will take remote control of my PC or Mac and do all the set up for me.

On a scale of 1-10, how hard is this migration? How long do you expect it to take?

It took 1 weekend at the Apple store to completely migrate all our PC data and  programs. We opted to use “VM Virtual Machine for our Windows stuff.

Talk about iMail vs. Outlook? Compatibility? Best way to migrate files or archives?

There were some issues at first with bringing over PST files and the iMail does not have as many pretty bells and whistles. In the end, we have found iMail much better and more stable than Outlook. There’s also the issue of ease of use with our iPhones , iPads etc. We chose to use PST Converter Pro to import our Outlook PST files.

I’m already going to run Windows for Mac, but not Outlook. What other software is recommended to ensure compatibility?

VM ware Fusion is what we use and it works great; there’s a bonus of faster speeds as it uses 100% of your RAM to run the windows program so no bogging down, and easy switching between Mac and windows.

I’m thinking I’ll always need to keep a Windows computer/laptop handy to access external hard drives’ files; what do you think about that?

No need at all! You can have all your PC and Mac files on the same iMac hard drive and I suggest you invest in a Mac “Time Capsule” back up drive.

What advice can you give someone without an IT department migrating on his/her own? (I’m thinking it’s “have patience!”)

At the beginning I suggested that you use Apple care, Genius Bar and Joint Venture. The Apple support is second to none and I highly recommend using them when you have issues or problems. You will no longer need an IT person or company. With Apple they take care of you from beginning to end and everything in between.

Making the change was a huge fear for me but once we started there has been no looking back. I cannot imagine ever going back to PC-based computing and even now I rarely use the Windows side of my iMac. There’s really nothing there that I can’t do with an Apple App.

Enjoy the new way of computing, Jayme, one without blue screens and crashes!